EVENTS

Vanna Teng: CEO Bund18

by

Libby Banks

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit: This is the featured image credit

A shake-up in China’s luxury market is just within reach

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

A shake-up in China’s luxury market is just within reach

A shake-up in China’s luxury market is just within reach.

SHANGHAI – As the world anticipates the extravagant Shanghai Expo 2010 next month with awe and, in places, bemusement, Bund18’s CEO Vanna Teng has designs on using this limelight to propose her vision of what luxury in China can – and should – become. For the uninitiated, Bund18 is something of a trailblazer, bringing well-heeled Shanghainese an impeccable combination of luxury brand retail, world class art and fine dining all housed within a UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award-winning site. According to Teng, Bund18’s recipe for luxury goes something like this: combine top-level brands with a creative atmosphere, coupled with a dash of old and new Shanghai, and an experience that balances the best of East and West.

But Teng believes that attitudes to luxury – both towards and within China – must evolve for the industry to truly blossom. She wants to replace the “me-too” consumer and brand mentality with a more considered appreciation of quality and design.

For Teng, much of the international luxury industry is yet to hit the target when it comes to capturing the Chinese consumer’s imagination. She bemoans the ignorance that persists around Chinese artists, Chinese brands and Chinese food and plans to promote these on the international stage.

This desire for a new luxury future in China has proved a decisive influence on Teng in her role as CEO of Bund18. Teng joined the company at its conception in 2003, rising through the ranks to take the top position last year. Design and craftsmanship lie at the heart of her vision of luxury – and she wants her customers to feel the same. This means keeping Bund18’s offer at the top of the spectrum and, so far, it’s an approach that has stood her in good stead. A focus on “investment” watches, jewellery and fine art during the global financial crisis led Bund18 to emerge relatively unscathed, she says . This strategy continues with Bund18’s sponsorship of the Shanghai Fine Jewellery and Art Fair, which coincides with the launch of the Expo.

With a budget rumoured to be nudging $4bn, Shanghai’s 2010 Expo certainly won’t be short of opulence. Will it demonstrate the kind of future luxury market that Teng has in mind for China? Perhaps not yet, but for Teng this is just the beginning.

Libby Banks
Libby Banks

Associate Editor

Bio Not Found

EVENTS

Vanna Teng: CEO Bund18

by

Libby Banks

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit : This is the featured image credit

A shake-up in China’s luxury market is just within reach

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

A shake-up in China’s luxury market is just within reach

A shake-up in China’s luxury market is just within reach.

SHANGHAI – As the world anticipates the extravagant Shanghai Expo 2010 next month with awe and, in places, bemusement, Bund18’s CEO Vanna Teng has designs on using this limelight to propose her vision of what luxury in China can – and should – become. For the uninitiated, Bund18 is something of a trailblazer, bringing well-heeled Shanghainese an impeccable combination of luxury brand retail, world class art and fine dining all housed within a UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award-winning site. According to Teng, Bund18’s recipe for luxury goes something like this: combine top-level brands with a creative atmosphere, coupled with a dash of old and new Shanghai, and an experience that balances the best of East and West.

But Teng believes that attitudes to luxury – both towards and within China – must evolve for the industry to truly blossom. She wants to replace the “me-too” consumer and brand mentality with a more considered appreciation of quality and design.

For Teng, much of the international luxury industry is yet to hit the target when it comes to capturing the Chinese consumer’s imagination. She bemoans the ignorance that persists around Chinese artists, Chinese brands and Chinese food and plans to promote these on the international stage.

This desire for a new luxury future in China has proved a decisive influence on Teng in her role as CEO of Bund18. Teng joined the company at its conception in 2003, rising through the ranks to take the top position last year. Design and craftsmanship lie at the heart of her vision of luxury – and she wants her customers to feel the same. This means keeping Bund18’s offer at the top of the spectrum and, so far, it’s an approach that has stood her in good stead. A focus on “investment” watches, jewellery and fine art during the global financial crisis led Bund18 to emerge relatively unscathed, she says . This strategy continues with Bund18’s sponsorship of the Shanghai Fine Jewellery and Art Fair, which coincides with the launch of the Expo.

With a budget rumoured to be nudging $4bn, Shanghai’s 2010 Expo certainly won’t be short of opulence. Will it demonstrate the kind of future luxury market that Teng has in mind for China? Perhaps not yet, but for Teng this is just the beginning.

Libby Banks
Libby Banks

Associate Editor

Bio Not Found

Related articles

EVENTS

[Video] LS Keynote Shanghai 2023: The Future of Luxury E-commerce

EVENTS

[Video] LS Keynote Shanghai 2023: The Grand Reopening: What’s Next for the Chinese Market

EVENTS

[Video] LS Keynote Shanghai 2023: The New Age of Digital